Liza Weber

is a writer, first and foremost, whether that be in the guise of a provenance researcher, oral historian, editor, dance journalist or, indeed, dancer. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, she is currently writing her doctoral thesis on the 1955 ‘documenta’ exhibition at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex.

Grounding Ballet: In Conversation with Adam Linder

26. September 2022, Liza Weber
  • Language:
  • EN

Calling from a cab on the way to the airport, the Los Angles-come-Berlin-based choreographer Adam Linder talks to Liza Weber about his new work “Loyalty” and renovating in the ruins of ballet. Shown at the Tanz Im August festival from the 25 to 26 August 2022, “Loyalty” was performed in three acts just like any ballet but proved, on several counts, unlike any ballet.

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Blood, Sweat & Talent

21. September 2022, Liza Weber
  • Languages:
  • DE
  • and
  • EN

Watching the premiere of Florentina Holzinger’s “Ophelia’s Got Talent”, I was reminded of an essay I once wrote that, using Ophelia in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ as an example, argued how women were drawn in fainter lines than their male counterparts. Nowhere is this further from the truth than in Holzinger’s show, which takes a fat marker pen to her name and, indeed, the name of every woman that has ever lived in her wake. Premiering on 15 September 2022 at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, “Ophelia’s Got Talent” opened the season with a celebration of womanhood that shouldn’t be missed.

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Atunwa

18. May 2022, Liza Weber
  • Language:
  • EN

In “Re:INCARNATION”, The QDance Company from Lagos, Nigeria, celebrated their German premiere on 14 May at Potsdamer Tanztage 2022 with a joy so infectious that the audience couldn’t help but giggle, applaud, and, when the dancers returned for an encore, answer their call, “Oggy, oggy, oggy?” with “Oi, oi, oi!”. It was as if the Hans Otto Theater had been turned into a festival stage and a song and dance had been made about the Yorùbá belief system in the cycles of life — of birth, life, death, and rebirth — both literally and figuratively speaking. 

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Coming Full Circle

3. May 2022, Liza Weber
  • Language:
  • EN

In “M.O.S.T”, an acronym for “My Ongoing Silent Transcendence”, which ran from the 15 to 30 April 2022 at the Pfefferberg Theater Berlin, dance company Chaim Gebber-Open Scene plots a timeline of events that chart, in the company’s own words, “universal and personal transformations.” As the choreography suggests, such transformations are not always linear, but rather cyclical in nature, where the dancers find themselves ending up much where they left off — with the ongoing silent transformation of the self.

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Performing Decolonisation Is One Thing, Decolonisation Another

31. March 2022, Liza Weber
  • Language:
  • EN

In an interview with Jana Lüthje, curator of the participatory dance project Moving the Forum at the Humboldt Forum, the question of if, and how, the institution was implementing change proved inevitable and, ultimately, inconclusive. The third of its four chapters called “Inhabiting” ran from 14 Feb to 26 March 2022, with the final chapter, “Interacting”, set to span 2 May to 11 June 2022.

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There Is No Return After War

15. March 2022, Liza Weber
  • Languages:
  • DE
  • and
  • EN

They say there should be five acts to any tragedy: 1) Exposition, 2) Rising Action, 3) The Climax, 4) Falling Action, and 5) Resolution. But then, this in no Ibsen or Shakespeare. This is Sasha Waltz & Guests, and this is a symphony of four movements. Which is to say, there is no resolution to be found in “SYM-PHONIE MMXX”, which had its world premiere on 13 March 2022 and next shows on 18 and 19 March at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin.

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